An online campaign in Afghanistan calling for the boycott of the ancient festival of Norouz has prompted a backlash among many Afghans, who have vented their exasperation at the growing influence of fundamentalist Islamic ideology in the war-torn country.

Heralding the arrival of spring, the pre-Islamic Persian new year celebration has been under constant fire from conservative Afghan clerics and militant groups that have called it un-Islamic.

The anti-Norouz campaign has distributed cartoons on social media leading up to Norouz festivities on March 20, urging people in the predominantly Muslim country not to celebrate.

Norouz is believed to have been a holiday of the Zoroastrian religion that was widespread in the region before the spread of Islam in the 7th century.It is also celebrated in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and parts of the Middle East.

One cartoon includes a man in religious clothing holding a poster that reads: “I do not celebrate Norouz.”

Beside the cartoon figure, the text reads: “This is Abdul Rahman. He does not celebrate Norouz. Abdul Rahman knows that Norouz is the Eid of Magus,” a word that refers to Zoroastrians.

The text adds that Abdul Rahman “has two Eids,” a reference to Eid al-Adha and Eid al-Fitr, the two most important festivals on the Islamic calendar. “Abdul Rahman is very smart. Be like Abdul Rahman,” the text reads.

A second cartoon has a young girl draped in black and holding a Koran, the Islamic holy book.

“This is Fatima,” reads the text. “Not only does Fatima not celebrate Norouz, but she also prevents other Muslim sisters [from doing so.] Because she knows that celebrating Norouz is an invention that promotes Zoroastrian traditions. Fatima is very cautious in matters of religious affairs.”

The cartoons have prompted an outpouring of anger at the growth of Islamic conservatism in society but has also led to a great show of support for Norouz, which is arguably the biggest day of the year for many Afghans.

Samay Hamed, a prominent cartoonist and political satirist, said on Facebook on March 9 that Abdul Rahman should “go to Saudi Arabia,” the birthplace of the extremist Wahhabi version of Islam, and perform a “sword dance for [U.S. President] Donald Trump,” who is a vocal supporter of Riyadh and took part in a traditional Saudi dance on a visit there in 2017.

“Instead of celebrating and being happy, people like Abdul Rahman are becoming suicide bombers and killing peoples’ families,” wrote Habib Mohammadi, a Kabul resident, on Facebook on March 10, in a reference to the radical ideology of militant groups like the extremist Taliban and the Islamic State groups that are fighting Afghan forces.

During its draconian rule from 1996 to 2001, the Taliban officially banned Norouz.

But the spirit of Norouz was so strong among Afghans that they continued to celebrate it discreetly at home, risking beatings and imprisonment.

Norouz was reinstated as an official holiday after the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

Taliban militants have issued periodic warnings against the observance of the holiday, and authorities have been constantly on the watch against possible bomb attacks during massive Norouz gatherings in Kabul and the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif.

“The influence of extremist groups like the Taliban and Islamic State and the spread of fundamentalist ideas has led some small sections of society to oppose national celebrations like Norouz,” Ali Amiri, a university lecturer in Kabul, told RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan.

Habibullah Rafi, a researcher and prominent Afghan writer, says Norouz has no religious connection to Zoroastrianism, the world’s first monolithic religion.

“The inhabitants of this land have been celebrating Norouz for thousands of years,” he told Radio Free Afghanistan. “It is a national and cultural day, and opposition to Norouz is illogical.”

Norouz is observed with a public holiday on March 20-21 in Afghanistan, but many people extend their celebrations for up to two weeks.

Festivities include planting flowers, congregating at mosques, attending games of the traditional buzkashi sport, and eating specific foods and fruits that represent the coming of spring.

Written by Frud Bezhan based on reporting by Mustafa Sarwar from RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan

BEIRUT/AMMAN/BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Syrian rebels say the United States and its allies are sending them more arms to try to fend off a new push into the southeast by Iran-backed militias aiming to open an overland supply route between Iraq and Syria.

The stakes are high as Iran seeks to secure its influence from Tehran to Beirut in a “Shi’ite crescent” of Iranian influence through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, where Sunni Arab states have lost out in power struggles with Iran.

Tensions escalated in the southeastern region of Syria, known as the Badia, this month when government forces supported by Iraqi Shi’ite militias deployed in a challenge to rebels backed by President Bashar al-Assad’s enemies.

This has coincided with a march towards the Syrian border by Shi’ite militias from Iraq. They reached the frontier adjoining northern Syria on Monday. A top Iraqi militia commander said a wider operation to take the area from Sunni jihadist Islamic State would start on Tuesday and this would help Syria’s army.

While in Iraq the United States has fought alongside Iranian-backed Iraqi government forces and Shi’ite militias against Islamic State, in Syria Washington has lined up against Assad’s Iranian-backed government and wants to block a further expansion of Iranian influence, with its regional allies.

The sides are vying for pole position in the next major phase of the fight against Islamic State: the battle to dislodge it from the eastern Syrian province of Deir al-Zor where many of the jihadists have relocated from Raqqa and Mosul.

Several rebel groups fighting under the Free Syrian Army (FSA) banner operate in the sparsely populated Badia, where they captured swathes of territory from Islamic State this year. U.S. air strikes on May 18 targeted Iran-backed fighters who had moved into the area.

Also in May, Damascus declared both the Badia and Deir al-Zor priorities of its campaign to re-establish its rule over Syria, which has been shattered by six years of war that have killed hundreds of thousands of people. The government is being helped by both Iran and Russia, while the opposition has been helped by the West and regional states which oppose Assad.

Rebels said military aid has been boosted through two separate channels: a programme backed by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), known as the MOC, and regional states including Jordan and Saudi Arabia, and one run by the Pentagon.

“There has been an increase in the support,” said Tlass Salameh, head of the Jaish Usoud al-Sharqiya, one of the FSA groups backed via the CIA-backed programme. “There’s no way we can let them open the Baghdad-Damascus highway,” he said.

A senior commander of a Pentagon-backed group, Maghawir al-Thawra, told Reuters a steady flow of weapons had arrived at their base near the Iraqi border since the pro-Damascus forces began deploying this month.

He said efforts to recruit and train local fighters from Deir al-Zor had accelerated at their garrison at Tanf, on the highway some 20 km (12 miles) from the Iraqi border.

“The equipment and reinforcements come and go daily … but in the last few weeks they have brought in more heavy military vehicles, TOW (missiles), and armoured vehicles,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Two armoured vehicles newly delivered to the Tanf garrison were shown in photos sent to Reuters from a rebel source. A video showed fighters unpacking mortar bombs.

In a written response to emailed questions from Reuters, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition did not say if coalition support to Maghawir al-Thawra had increased.

Colonel Ryan Dillon said coalition forces were “prepared to defend themselves if pro-regime forces refuse to vacate” a de-confliction zone around Tanf.

“The coalition has observed pro-regime forces patrolling in the vicinity of the established de-confliction zone around the Tanf training site in Syria … Pro-regime patrols and the continued armed and hostile presence of forces inside the … zone is unacceptable and threatening to coalition forces.”

U.S. jets this week dropped leaflets on pro-government forces instructing them to pull out of the Tanf area to the Zaza junction further from the border. The leaflets were obtained by Hammurabi Justice, a Maghawir-linked website.

The Syrian army could not be reached for comment.

A commander in the military alliance fighting in support of Assad told Reuters the deployment of government forces and pro-Damascus Iraqi fighters in the Badia would “obstruct all the plans of the MOC, Jordan and America”.

The commander, a non-Syrian, said Assad’s enemies were committed to blocking “what they call the (Shi’ite) Crescent”. But, he said, “Now, our axis is insistent on this matter and it will be accomplished.”

The Iraqi Badr militia said its advance to the Syrian border would help the Syrian army reach the border from the other side. “The Americans will not be allowed to control the border,” its leader, Hadi al-Amiri, told al-Mayadeen TV.

]]>Iranians Raise Cry As They Brace For U.S. Immigration Banhttp://saindiamagazine.com/2017/01/29/iranians-raise-cry-as-they-brace-for-u-s-immigration-ban/
Sun, 29 Jan 2017 15:58:23 +0000http://saindiamagazine.com/?p=1844Anticipating an executive order from the White House to temporarily shut off Iranians’ access to […]]]>

Anticipating an executive order from the White House to temporarily shut off Iranians’ access to U.S. visas and other avenues to immigration, Iranians have voiced frustration with being targeted for exclusion alongside citizens from a handful of predominantly Muslim countries where conflicts are raging.

The prospect of such immigration curbs by U.S. President Donald Trump, a purported draft of which has circulated in U.S. media, appears to be roughly in line with Trump’s campaign promise to impose security measures including at least a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States in the face of a threat from “radical Islamic terrorism.”

The ban would come with a cloud also hanging over the fate of a major deal struck in 2015 between Tehran and world powers including the United States to limit Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. Trump has vowed to revisit that agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which went into effect despite strident opposition from Iran hawks in the United States and hard-liners in Tehran.

Some Iranian-Americans were among vocal critics calling any visa and immigration ban on Iranians discriminatory and contrary to U.S. principles.

New York-based Mehdi Arabshahi, a former student activist jailed in Iran for his political activism, responded to reports that Trump would impose a minimum 30-day ban by asking whether visa restrictions would also apply for Academy Award-winning Iranian film director Asghar Farhadi, who was nominated for a second Oscar this week for his film The Salesman.

Tweeting from Iran, actress Taraneh Alidoosti, who plays the lead female role in The Salesman, called such a U.S. ban “racist” and said that she would not attend the Oscar ceremony in protest.

Los Angeles-based writer and arts curator Shiva Balaghi, a former professor of art history at Brown University, was also critical.

Terrorist Tag

The U.S. Department of State designated Iran a “state sponsor of terrorism” in 1984, a view that is officially unchanged, and has reiterated more recently its accusation of “terrorist-related activity” by Tehran, including “support for Hizballah, Palestinian terrorist groups in Gaza, and various groups in Iraq and throughout the Middle East.”

There was also criticism from inside Iran as the international community awaited word from the White House.

Ali, a 16-year-old student in Tehran who said he hoped to pursue a university degree in the United States in the future, told RFE/RL that the inclusion left him puzzled. “I don’t understand why Iranians are targeted. We’re not terrorist, there hasn’t been a single terrorist from Iran,” Ali said in a chat via Telegram on January 25.

Iran has been also accused by Argentinian authorities of involvement in the 1994 bombing of the Jewish center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people and injured more than 300 others. Tehran denies the accusations.

Ali added that he hoped Trump would change his decision: “My dream is to study in America in order to have a better future, I hope this [ban] won’t mean an end to my wish.”

‘Punishing Ordinary Iranians’

The United States is a leading destination for students from all over the world, with international student enrollment at public and private U.S. institutions totaling more than 1 million young people in 2015-16, according to the Institute of International Education, with roughly one-third of them coming from China and Iranians well outside the top 10 places of origin.

Hengameh, a mother of two in Tehran, told RFE/RL via Telegram she was offended by the U.S. decision. “I don’t have plans to travel to America, but I know many who have relatives there. This will make things harder for them,” she said, adding that obtaining a U.S. visa is already difficult for Iranians.

The United States and Iran cut off diplomatic ties decades ago, and Washington has relied on the Swiss government to represent its diplomatic interests in Iran ever since. As a result, to apply for a U.S. visa, Iranians already had to travel to a third country with a U.S. consulate for an interview and to pick up the actual document.

“This is discrimination, what have Iranians done to deserve this? We keep hearing that Iranians in [the U.S.] are among the most successful immigrants so what is the reason for this [ban]?” Hengameh asked.

Many Iranian-Americans emigrated to the United States in the period surrounding Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.

One possible consequence of a looming ban was highlighted by Dubai-based Reuters reporter Bozorgmehr Sharafedi, who wrote on Twitter that it would prevent his mother from visiting her son, his brother, in the United States.

Others expressed dismay that ordinary Iranians would be punished for actions by the Iranian establishment.

“Instead of targeting the regime, Trump is punishing the people,” a reader commented on the Facebook page of RFE/RL’s Radio Farda.

“Those who claim the U.S. doesn’t have an issue with the Iranian people, only with the government, please pay attention,” another reader wrote.

“The adoption of this [executive order] and similar laws will hurt only the Iranian people, and it won’t have any impact on the travels of government [officials] to America,” a comment on Radio Farda’s Facebook page said.

“It’s clear that [Trump] doesn’t have a proper understanding of terrorists. Most of them are from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and other countries,” another comment said.

Fifteen of the 19 hijackers who used passenger jets to carry out coordinated terrorist attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001, were from Saudi Arabia. Osama bin Laden, the leader of the Al-Qaeda terrorist network blamed for the attack, was a Saudi citizen.

One of the attackers in a mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, in 2015 was a Pakistani woman who grew up in Saudi Arabia and was said to have been radicalized in part by sympathies for Islamic State (IS), a brutal militant Islamist group that controls parts of Iraq and Syria. Tashfeen Malik and her American-born husband of Pakistani descent, Rizwan Farook, killed 14 people and injured 22 others.

Quoting sources familiar with the visa process ahead of any official U.S. announcement, Reuters reported that Trump was likely to order the State Department to stop issuing visas to people from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. He could also instruct U.S. Customs and Border Protection to stop any current visa holders from those countries from entering the United States.

]]>Syria Says No To Autonomous Administration In East Aleppohttp://saindiamagazine.com/2016/11/20/syria-says-no-to-autonomous-administration-in-east-aleppo/
Sun, 20 Nov 2016 17:20:55 +0000http://saindiamagazine.com/?p=1525The Syrian government has rejected a proposal by the United Nations to grant Aleppo’s rebel-held […]]]>

The Syrian government has rejected a proposal by the United Nations to grant Aleppo’s rebel-held areas autonomy to help restore calm to the northern city.

The state’s institutions “must be restored” to Aleppo once rebels have been expelled, Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem said after talks with the UN’s special envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura, in Damascus on November 20.

He added that Syria doesn’t accept leaving some 275,000 people in east Aleppo as “hostages to 6,000 gunmen.”

De Mistura said he expected to issue a statement later in the day.

Earlier this week, the UN envoy warned that the Syrian government was chasing a “pyrrhic victory” in Aleppo if it does not arrive at a political settlement with the opposition.

He also warned that the military’s unrestrained approach would drive more moderate rebels into the ranks of the Islamic State extremist group.

World Health Organization official Elizabeth Hoff said on November 19 that five days of air and artillery strikes by government forces have left all medical facilities in Aleppo’s rebel-held districts “out of service.”

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 103 people have been killed in these areas since the latest government assault began on November 15, following a three-week moratorium.

Thirteen have died in the government-controlled areas.

On November 20, activists and state media said eight children died in the government-held west of Aleppo after a school was hit by rebel fire.

Fifty-nine other people were injured at the school in the Furqan neighborhood, according to the SANA news agency.

And in rebel-held Sakhour district, medics were quoted as saying a barrel bomb killed a family of six.

White House national security adviser Susan Rice said on November 19 that the United States condemned “in the strongest terms” the latest air strikes against medical facilities and urged Russia, an ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, to take steps to halt the violence.

Aleppo has been divided between government control in the west and rebel control in the east since mid-2012.

Iraqi troops are facing stiff resistance from Islamic State (IS) militants as they push deeper into eastern Mosul, backed by aerial support from the U.S.-led international coalition.

Major General Sami al-Aridi of the Iraqi special forces said on November 19 that IS militants were fighting in eastern Mosul with snipers, rocket-propelled grenades, and mortar rounds.

To the west of Mosul, government-sanctioned Shi’ite militias took full control of the Tal Afar military airfield on November 18.

Jaafar al-Husseini, a spokesman for one of the militias — the Hezbollah Brigades — said the clashes almost destroyed the airport but that it will be an important launching pad for the troops in their advance.

The IS extremist group captured Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, in the summer of 2014.

The offensive to retake the city, which was launched on October 17, is the biggest military operation in Iraq since U.S. troops left in 2011.

According to the United Nations, more than 56,000 civilians have been forced from their homes since the operation began, out of nearly 1.5 million civilians living in and around Mosul.

A Taliban suicide bomber drove a truck loaded with explosives into the German Consulate in northern Afghanistan, killing at least six people and wounding more than 100.

The truck exploded at the entrance of the consulate in the city of Mazar-e Sharif, destroying the gate and wall just before midnight on November 10.

A spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry said on November 11 that all of its two dozen staff escaped the attack “safe and uninjured” and were evacuated, while Afghan security forces and NATO special forces had “repulsed the heavily armed attackers.”

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was revenge for U.S. air strikes last week that killed 32 civilians near the northern city of Kunduz.

President Ashraf Ghani called the attack a “crime against humanity and all international laws.”

A spokesman for the governor of Balkh Province told RFE/RL’s Afghan Service that the suicide bomb blast made a large hole in the compound wall and other Taliban fighters tried to enter the compound through the gap.

But he said security forces at the consulate prevented militants from storming inside the compound.

Local doctor Noor Mohammad Fayez said the city hospitals received six dead bodies, including two killed by bullets.

He added that at least 128 others were wounded, some of them critically and many with shrapnel injuries.

Witnesses said many of the injured were Afghans who were sleeping in their homes nearby and were struck by flying glass when their windows were shattered by the massive explosion.

Many nearby houses and shops were destroyed or damaged in the huge blast.

The heavily protected German Consulate is located in a large building close to the famous Blue Mosque in the center of Mazar-e Sharif, where the Indian Consulate was also attacked by militants earlier this year.

The Taliban statement from spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the attack was in retaliation for November 3 air strikes in the Buz-e-Kandahari area of Kunduz that killed dozens of people, the vast majority of them women and children.

NATO, the United Nations, and the Afghan government are investigating the attack, which prompted angry protests in Kunduz.

In Berlin, officials said a crisis task-force meeting was called at Germany’s Foreign Ministry to review events surrounding the attack.

Germany has almost 1,000 soldiers deployed in Afghanistan, most of them in Balkh, of which Mazar-e Sharif is the capital, as part of NATO’s Resolute Support mission.

In the past several years, attacks have increased in northern Afghanistan, which for years was relatively peaceful.

Taliban militants have overrun dozens of districts in the region and last year seized Kunduz city, the first major city the group captured since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.

With additional reporting by Reuters, AP, dpa, and AFP

]]>Afghanistan Before The Warshttp://saindiamagazine.com/2016/06/08/illegal-downloading-think-twice-using-torrenting-websites/
Wed, 08 Jun 2016 06:42:51 +0000http://saindiamagazine.com/?p=808It’s difficult to imagine today, but Afghanistan was once a popular destination for foreigners with […]]]>

It’s difficult to imagine today, but Afghanistan was once a popular destination for foreigners with adventure in their blood. From 1970 to 1974, as Western and Soviet powers competed for influence in the country, one young American family compiled a photographic record of expat life in a country that has deteriorated so drastically since then, it’s as if time was moving backward.

The Blue Mosque in Mazar-e Sharif. In 2011, the year the Larsons last returned to Afghanistan, four people were killed when a bicycle bomb exploded near the mosque.

Elliot Larson and his wife Marty worked in a medical facility in Jalalabad while raising a young family. On many of their outings they took a small Minolta camera, shooting slide film of weekends in the sun and trips to regions where today not even NATO soldiers can safely travel. The couple has kindly shared their pictures with RFE/RL, which are published here for the first time.